Reality versus perception: The process of response to hate speech in higher education

Since the mid-eighties, incidents of discriminatory harassment and intolerance have occurred randomly on campuses throughout the country. The episodes, often reflecting undesirable behaviors including incivility and intolerance toward a variety of minority clusters, have generated significant concern among administrators as well as members of the academic community in public and private institutions throughout the United States. Although institutions combined many elements to combat increasing campus conflict and tensions, two approaches emerged with some alacrity. The community-based approach relied predominantly on required coursework, an ambitious extracurricular program of lectures and special events, or some combination of the two to promote and increase awareness related to individual and cultural diversity. The more legalistic, policy-driven approach typically resulted in the implementation of a "hate speech" code. The Universities of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Wisconsin at Madison, both having implemented speech codes, experienced immediate legal challenges to their respective codes based on conflict with First Amendment guarantees of free expression.In its attempt to ascertain a more effective means of combating conflict and tensions resulting from increasing campus diversity, this exploratory research uses a case study format to explore the approach(es) used at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. One element of particular interest in exploring the respective approaches was the sense and use of community by those campus administrators who had the ability to impact their institution's policy-making processes.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio